WASP activity (Word Associations for Syllable Perception)

Posted May 20 2009 1:20pm

Lily has been "playing" with listening and sound production through the use of sound/object toys for the past few months and has been doing very well.

Last week we started using the Level 1 WASP (Word Associations for Syllable Perception) pictures for the same purpose, to help Lily discover the connection between what she hears and what she is able to say. These pictures represent the full range of the English language, vary by pitch, duration and intonation patterns and by number of syllables.

The program progressively becomes more complex as a child develops stronger listening and sound/word production skills. We'll be able to use this tool for both strengthening of auditory perception and speech production skills as well as for assessment.

Our SLP Carole uses the WASP sound cards by covering her mouth and then saying the sound or word. Lily repeats the word and then gets to see and hold the card. Sometimes the card goes on Lily's head, on the floor, walks across her tray or jumps right into the card box. Amazingly, Lily got nearly every sound right. We're so proud.

Here are some technical stats for our SLP readers of the words or sounds she missed:

Lily substituted d/g, n/l, s/f: all developmental errors (kids do d/g often, also w/l or p/f. RE: n/l and s/f: Lily knew the type of sound to make (/n/ and /l/ are both glides, /s/ and /f/ both airy sounds.....so she was really getting good information about how the sounds were made or should sound.

Also sounded like ts/ch one time, again very typical. For /ch/, children often move from /t/ to /ts/ to the /ch/. /g/ is a sound that develops during the 3rd year, /f/ during the 4th year, /l/ and /ch/ more like 5-6 years.

Lily also said "boo" for "oo," then changed it. I actually think she was just anticipating that it was "boo" since I made the sound with the same inflection we say "boo." She changed to "oo" as soon as she saw my mouth.

So far, Lily is off to a fantastic start. We're amazed at how
attentive she is to the activities and how she is able to use her
listening skills to discriminate what she hears and then say it back. Really awesome performance. ( Thanks for your help writing this post Carole.)